Freezing Fire
by Shadow.of.memory
Summary: What if Katniss hadn't killed Coin? What if the final Hunger Games went ahead? Would the revolution come back in a full circle?
1. Chapter 1

There is a dull thud as the final shot of the war pierces my Grandfather's heart and hits the wooden beam he is cuffed to. A ghost of a smile plays upon his swollen lips, taunting the girl who shot the arrow. His body slumps forwards and there is a joint exhale of the crowd of Capitol and district citizens alike. The Mockingjay, otherwise known as Katniss Everdeen, lowers her black bow and turns away from the crowd before stalking back into the Presidential mansion. The crowd buzzes with murmured whispers and speculations – there are few that were around before President Snow took power and now that he was finally dead, no one knows what the new era of President Coin will bring.

My father squeezes my hand tightly, reassuring me. I'm not quite sure what of though, because I felt nothing except a thud as hollow and dull as the thud that brought my Grandfather's death. On my other side, my mother lets out a quiet sigh of relief. She has never liked her husband's father – probably because of the way he looked at her, as though he was ravenously hungry and she was a juicy steak just out of his reach. OK, maybe not quite like that, but you know what I mean. My father, however, was very fond of the President but didn't dare to argue against his execution in case the attention was drawn to us, his only surviving relations.

I turn round to survey the sea of rebels and citizens of the Capitol. Some have red hot anger constricting their throats, some have pure fear written across their faces and some are laughing and singing as though a great burden has been lifted off their shoulders. As the officials and undertakers clear the platform, the masses begin to leave the square in clumps, still discussing the execution as they go. Safe in between my mother and father, we push our way down the streets and through the back alleys to a secluded candyfloss-pink detached house belonging to Mother's friend, Julia.

She opens the door with a great squeal as we wearily trudge into the baby blue interior. Her bright orange hair looks as though it's just come into contact with an electric fuse and her usual thick gold eyeliner and mascara has been smudged with tears.

'Oh, you poor darlings!' she gushes over sympathetically, clutching me with surprising force to her chest. 'I just couldn't bring myself to go! These rebels are just so barbaric! Just wait until I –,' but we never got to hear what Julia was going to do to the rebels. The aqua flat screen TV set in the corner of the room suddenly flickers into life like it used to whenever the Capitol had something every household in Panem needed to see. The rebels must have taken over control already, I think grimly.

'Cordelia, sweetie, turn the volume up,' Mother asks, interrupting an indignant Julia. I walk over to the set, turn it up and settle onto the fluffy orange sofa that matches our host's hair so well.

'Probably a re-cap of the execution,' Father mutters. Mother pats his knee and pretends to ignore his flinch. Julia looks as though she's welling up again until President Coin's hateful face appears on the screen, apparently in Grandfather's study. She begins by talking about the death of the old President, then says a short piece about a few of the rebels who died fighting against what was the old, much loathed rule of President Snow. A few of the names I recognise, like Finnick Odair (I had a poster of him on my wall in our old house), Portia and Cinna the adored stylists and Primrose Everdeen who must have been the sister of Katniss. I don't feel pity for her or any of her family – the Mockingjay got what she deserves after killing my Grandfather and making Father so upset. If it wasn't for her, there would be no rebellion, the Hunger Games would continue and I would be at school or in my old house blissful and content at my life in the Capitol. I had thought I rather liked her when I watched her in the Arena last year with that boy…what was his name? Oh yes, Peeta. I had giggled and sighed with my friends over their romance but now I would happily kill her if I had the chance. Or him, if heartbreak could kill her, but I doubt anything except a gun or a knife would kill someone so fierce and cold.

'Finally, we have a few new rules that should be put in place with immediate effect,' Coin announces firmly, her eyes seemingly boring into mine. 'All shops that provide decoration of the body will be closed and boarded by the end of the week. We do not have time for frivolities in the new country which is Panem. Citizens shall receive standard clothing items tomorrow at the City centre.'

I hear Julia let out a sob as she clutches her hair as though it might jump off her scalp and run out the door. It could well do – I think it might be a wig. I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the screen.

'Secondly, if any citizen – Capitol or District – opposes the revolution with violence or any other means they will be imprisoned and most likely killed for their treachery. Panem is a whole and we must work together to achieve the same goal – peace and prosperity.

'Last but by no means least, we are going to have a final Hunger Games to remind Panem that the oppressors can be punished by the people and they are not invincible.'

There is a sharp intake of breath that seems to echo across the whole land. I bet every household in the country is glued to their TV sets hanging on her every word.

'However, this time, the tributes will not come from the Districts as before but from the Capitol its self. The children of the oppressors must pay for the crimes of their fathers and forefathers, as we paid for ours. The children and grandchildren of the leaders of the Capitol will be this year's tributes.' Coin smiles slyly and reaches for an envelope at the corner of the desk. 'We have already had the reapings…' her smile widens as she pulls out the first name from the envelope. I realise I'm holing by breath. 'Our first tribute in the Final Hunger Games is Cordelia Snow.'

I faint.


	2. Chapter 2

'Cordelia,' calls my mother's voice gently in my ear. My head's throbbing with each beat of my racing heart. Someone presses a damp flannel across my forehead in an attempt to revive me. I reluctantly open my eyes and immediately regret it. I let out a moan as the ceiling swims in front of me, blurring my vision.

'She hit the floor pretty hard,' confirms my father with an edge to his voice. I can't tell whether it's anger or grief that's causing it. 'She'll have a big lump for a couple of days.' He crouches down next to my mother who is using the cloth to wipe away her tears as well as cool my sweaty forehead. 'Don't worry Cordelia, darling, we'll have this mess sorted out as soon as we can.' I know I should feel relief at his words but nothing strikes home. His voice seems to be coming from a mile away. Thoughts and emotions are churning with frightening speed around my head, like the washing machines at the laundry buildings. Fear, anger, grief, rage, fear. I know the Capitol deserves this after seventy-five years of sacrifice and despair for the Districts, but the children of the oppressors needn't suffer for it, surely! I have done naught to waylay the rebellion and the only crime I have committed is to have the same surname as the old man who was killed in cold blood this morning. I close my eyes again and focus my hearing on the rest of what Coin is saying. She is just finishing the rigged 'reapings' and ending with the twisted catchphrase 'And may the odds be ever in your favour.' I can almost picture the woman sneering at the camera as the TV switches off of its own accord and the only sounds in the room are the ticking of the clock and the throbbing of my head.

With the help of my parents (Julia has to have scuttled off to the kitchen to make hot chocolate for us 'poor souls') I manage to haul myself up onto the sofa, an icepack pressed against my lump. We sit in silence. There's nothing much to say.

'Well, I suppose we had this coming,' whispers Mother weakly, tenderly stroking my knee.

'They have no right to our daughter's life!' simmers Father angrily, clutching my hand as though I could vanish at any moment.

'Who says I'm going to die?' I say quietly. That shuts them up. They can't grieve for my life without admitting they think I haven't a chance in hell.

'Oh, my dears!' wails Julia, rushing from the kitchen carrying three steaming cups of hot chocolate. I wearily accept mine with a thanks and grimace as she babbles on about the barbarisms of these rebels. 'Everything was fine until they came along! They have no regard for human life, these animals!' she cries, clutching her hair again. I say nothing and continue drinking my chocolate. The truth is too condemning and real to burst on the vain and ignorant woman sitting beside me. The truth is the rebels are only doing what we, the Capitol, did to them for seventy-five years. Yes, going into the final arena with no fighting or weaponry experience against twenty-three children I have known since childhood would be the perfect conclusion to a bloody war. Oh, the irony. The President's own granddaughter forced to suffer the horrors he created. It will quench the thirst for Capitol blood and provide entertainment for the whole country simultaneously. Even if I turn out to be capable in the arena, I doubt the new board of Gamemakers will allow me to be victorious. My death will be Snow's final punishment beyond the grave.

I know I should be crying, comforting my parents and assuring them that I will do my best to win and come home safely. But I know that the moment I was singled out as Snow's only descendant of the right age my death warrant was signed and approved.

'Oh, Cordy, daaarling,' babbles Julia, 'I will watch you every night and cheer you on! I can't believe the unfairness of it…_such _a waste of life. And looks, too…' she fondles one of my snowy ringlets between her soft, baby-like palms. I say nothing, but the way she's acting it's as though _she's _the one off to her certain death, not me. 'I'll show them –'

But we never get to find out what Julia would show them as something thuds against the door twice, then stops. Then three times, then four times, becoming heavier and heavier until cracks start to show in the show frame. We all freeze on the sofa, hot chocolate forgotten and watch as the door splinters and creaks then finally bursts open to reveal at least ten men in a plain, greyish uniform standing on the street, carrying a large metal battering ram between them.

'We have orders directly from President Coin herself that Cordelia Snow is to be seized and held as one of the tributes in the final Hunger Games,' barks one of the men, not meeting anyone's eye. Well, neither would I if I had to arrest an innocent fifteen-year-old girl and take her to her death. Mother lets out a whimper and clutches my hand harder.

'Let her go,' orders Father in a stern voice, releasing my other hand and nudging me towards the guards at the door. Mother's chest is wracked with sobs, but she obeys my father and lets go of my hand.

'You didn't have to break down the door, you vandals!' yells Julia indignantly shaking her fist at the rebels as they handcuff my wrists and lead me out of the door. They ignore her and the last thing I hear is my mother repeatedly moaning, 'My girl, my little girl,' before Father tells her to be quiet, for my sake. I take one last glance at the three adults in the blue sitting room then turn back to the guards who are leading me down the road and into the back of an armoured van. Really, they're treating me as though I'm a high-security criminal! Three men sit in the back with me, silent and stony – impossible to read.

'So!' I say with false cheerfulness, 'Where are we off to now?' There's no reply. I sigh and lean back against the wall of the van. The last thing I remember before I drift off to sleep is the steady chaffing off the cuffs against my wrists.


	3. Chapter 3

'Wake up!' I am jolted awake by someone roughly shaking my arm. I groggily open my eyes. The back of the van is opened up to reveal humid orangey light. I realise its evening and am surprised by how long I slept. 'We had to sedate you when we were on the train,' explains the rebel, as if reading my thoughts. Train? What train? Where am I? I wipe the sleep from my ears, smearing blue mascara down my cheek and onto my sleeve. Do I care? Not one bit. The guard looks at me with the distaste and nudges my back, as if to make me move forwards. I start walking and take in my surroundings. We are in a courtyard, about the size of a tennis court. The floor is cobbled with uneven stones, giving the impression of age and use. Brightly coloured flowers creep um the four walls and with the evening sunset light pouring through the metal gates, the scene is quite beautiful.

'The temporary training centre,' says the mind-reading guard behind me. 'The original was burnt down in the conflict a couple of weeks ago, and we had to find an abandoned house at such short notice, the only suitable one was this one. The location is not ideal, but -,' he trails off as we enter the Training Centre. 'Your room is this way,' barks the guard, leading me down a cushy, richly decorated corridor to a smallish room, containing a bed and wardrobe and an en suite bathroom. 'Supper will be delivered to your door. Tomorrow morning you will meet your stylist and prepare for the final parade.' He shuts the door quietly behind him. I hear the definite click of a lock and sigh. I decide to watch TV to take my mind off the next few weeks of my pathetic existence.

I flick through the twenty-one different channels, not staying on one for more than a minute. Occasionally, a newsflash pops up on the screen. There are several replays of the reapings, and this time I pay close attention to the names of my rivals. Oh no, I'm not going down without a fight. I might as well delay the inevitable of die trying. I dimly recognise about half of the names Coin announces, either because we have met or they are the offspring of ex-Capitol officials. There are no pictures of the tributes and I feel blind and ignorant of my opposition. In the old Hunger Games, the whole of Panem got to see every single tribute walk up onto the stage.

It soon becomes apparent over the course of my sleepless night that the other tributes are also being held here in the Training Centre. About an hour after my arrival, I hear a van pulling into the drive and a scuffle. A guard yells there's a buzz. A body falls to the floor.

'Only stunned him,' calls the guard cheerily to his colleagues. In the next couple of hours, more and more vans arrive and unload. Some children scream and cry for mercy, others are silent and I wonder whether the van is delivering supplies. Some shout and mouth off at the rebels, but that only earns them a taste of the Taser.

I plug the ear buds they so thoughtfully left on the dressing table and scrunch up my eyes, trying desperately to drift off to sleep and forget the horrors that await me in the morning.

But how wrong I was. My restless sleep is torn apart by violent, twisted, vivid images of what I'd seen in the arena from the sitting room at home. My parents' faces keep popping up, shimmering and shaking with silver tears. I am lying on the bank of the river where last year Katniss and Peeta – the star crossed lovers from District 12 – teamed up. I dip my toes into the cool stream and close my eyes, glad of the peace. Then the water suddenly becomes lukewarm and thicker. My toes are sticky when I rub them together so I look down at them. And scream. The crystal clear water has turned into a gushing river of blood. Body parts, hands, feet, legs float down the river. A boat is sailing amongst them with a blood curdling, all too familiar figure controlling the oars. The Mockingjay. Her face is black and menacing, her coal black eyes bore right into me, simmering like embers on a dying fire. I scream again and pinch myself to wake me up. Wake up, wake up! I think desperately.

I sit up, drenched in perspiration. I'm trembling violently. With a shaky sigh of relief I wrap the duvet around me and settle back onto the mattress. The image is still burning against my eyelids at dawn and I find sleep impossible.


	4. Chapter 4

'Ah, look at those bags under her eyes!' whines a typically Capitol voice.

'I know, she might have been more considerate,' grumbles another.

'Well, we aren't the best stylists in Panem for nothing, let's work with what we got!' says yet another.

'Well, after Cinna of course,' mumbles the first voice, subdued.

'Yes, it was a pity he was such a traitor,' agrees the second voice.

'Shush! We shouldn't say such things nowadays! You never know who's listening!' hisses the last voice and I hear a yelp as he pinches voice number two. I mumble grumpily as though I had just woken up and rub my eyes groggily. As I open my eyes I see the most pitiful sight I had ever seen. It is all I can do to keep myself from laughing. Two male and one female Capitol stylists are gazing down at me, hair falling out of their previously elaborate hair-dos, colour fading off their washed out skin. They obviously were suffering from the new ban on salons.

'She's awake!' chirps the girl with the remains of some elegant pattern of stars smudged around her forehead. Her huge doe-eyes stare down at me, sympathy and naivety written all over her face.

'We're your stylists for the Final Hunger Games,' explains the one of the men as he helps me out of bed. 'I'm Claudius, and these are Stephanus and Persephone,' he said, indicating each one in turn.

I nod warily, slightly creeped out by the eagerness and devotion so clearly expressed on their faces. 'Sorry,' mutters Stephanus embarrassedly, as thought he could read my thoughts, 'it's just, we've never had a chance to style someone of…quite so high a profile,' understanding dawns. They think me practically royalty because I'm Snow's granddaughter. I realise this is probably going to happen to me every time I come across a Capitolian who still believes in the old regime. I sigh and undress at Sephy's command. I'm beyond the point of caring whether a stranger sees me with no clothes on. It seems like ages since I was standing in a crowd of people I knew, with my mother and father on either side, their hands warm in mine. I could be dead in the next week. So does it really matter if someone I will almost certainly never see again sees me naked?

'At least you've got a figure, unlike some of those District 11 urchins we've had to 'style' before,' sniffs Claudius as he folds up my clothes neatly and places them on the bed.

'Yes, remember that little scrap…Row? Roar? Rose?' Stephanus scrunches up his face and looks to Sephy for help.

'No, no…something after some plant they have there. Well anyway, she had less flesh on her than that roast duck Julius finished off at the Equinox party last year!' she gazes longingly into the distance, probably recounting other delicacies she'd never taste again.

I think of little Rue from last year, the one who jumped from tree to tree like a monkey in seventy-fourth games. She was a tiny thing, not a spare inch of skin on her. Even she, who was stronger, faster and cleverer than I ever will be, ended up lying on her back with a spear in her stomach.

'Hmm,' ponders Claudius as he measures everything that could possibly be measured on my body, from the diameter of my nostrils to the width of my little toe nail. I squirm and fidget but when he's done I find that's the easiest part of what's to come. As soon as his tape measure is in his pocket, the team hauls me into the bathroom and start lathering me with a rough, disgusting smelling paste, which I recognise to be a cleansing scrub – I'd had other such encounters with the foul concoction. After a while the process becomes monotonous and I feel my eyes grow heavy. It takes everything I have in me to keep them open.

But I needn't have worried about waking up, because all of a sudden an icy torrent of water hits my back. I splutter and gasp as Stephanus and Sephy rinse off all the grit and cover me in some kind of lavender smelling moisturiser.

'I'm really sorry, sweetie,' apologises Claudius as he admires the team's work.

'For what?' I ask. For turning my skin as red as a tomato? For making me smell like the bottom of a bad fish crate? For worrying about his chipped nails when I was about to enter the fight for my life?

His eyes don't quite meet mine, and the usually sparky Sephy starts examining her fingers as they are the most absorbing things in the room. 'What?' I demand, snatching a bathing robe from Stephanus as I step out of the tub. The three of them exchange embarrassed looks and avoid looking directly at me. 'Well?' I practically yell at Claudius, 'What's going on? What am I wearing for the parade?' The way he cringed as I mentioned the parade told me all I needed to know. Everything came crashing down on me as I slumped against the side of the bath. 'They're going to make me wear something ridiculous, aren't they?' I ask weakly, looking up at them but this time only seeing sympathy in their eyes.

'We protested against it,' assures Sephy, as if this makes everything okay.

'The orders came directly from the…,' Stephanus looked around as though there are hidden cameras everywhere. Which there probably is, knowing the rebels. The look of suspicion on his baby-like face is almost comical. Almost. '…usurper…Coin,' he finishes in a whisper.

'Sorry,' apologises Claudius again, for what seems like the tenth time that morning.

'Well,' I smile with forced brightness, 'it can't be that bad, can it?' With the help of Sephy I pull myself to my feet and go over to my bed, where a package that wasn't there earlier was placed. A guard must have put it there while we were in the bathroom. 'Go on, then.' I indicate for Stephanus to open the box and reveal the monstrosity I would have to wear in front of the whole of Panem this evening.

With a grimace and a complaint of lack of colour co-ordination, he pulled out a thick velvet mass of red. With a few sighs and mutters, the three stylists pulled it over my head and ushered me towards the floor length mirror in the bathroom. I stared back at my reflection in horror.

I was dress as a giant red rose.


End file.
